


Eternities Still Unsaid

by RileyC



Category: Amelia Peabody - Elizabeth Peters
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Divergence, F/M, Trapped, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-06 23:56:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5435570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RileyC/pseuds/RileyC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the conclusion of "A River in the Sky," the Emersons have returned to Egypt. Dangers await there, too, as an enemy steps out of the past. Ramses and Nefret are left trapped in dire straits. Will secrets come to light? Will rescue come in time? Will.. Well you get the idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eternities Still Unsaid

**Author's Note:**

  * For [idiopathicsmile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/idiopathicsmile/gifts).



Nefret had believed herself well-acquainted with every corner, every stone of Deir el Bahri. It seemed she had been mistaken. That Ramses was no better informed was an even greater surprise. A stranger might have thought his expression remote and unyielding as the rocky landscape. She considered herself well-versed in reading between the lines of that stone face, though. Right now, the downward turn of his lips, and the quirk of his dark eyebrows, told her Ramses was as perplexed and uncertain as she.

The Countess, fanning herself with a gloved hand, interrupted Nefret’s thought. “Please, might we stop at that oasis?” Her appeal was made to Ramses. “I fear I may swoon in this heat.”

Perhaps she might have thought of that before insisting on riding out today. She might at least have made concessions in adopting a costume better suited to the desert climate than to a canter through Hyde Park. But no, while Nefret’s own attire was patterned after Ramses’ riding kit, the Countess wore a black riding habit that would have been approved by the late Queen. It was the height of absurdity in these surroundings. 

“I say!”exclaimed the Countess. “Might those be ruins?” A thrill of excitement ran through her perfectly modulated voice.

“If they are,” Ramses rose in his stirrups for a better look, “they’re rather more recent than what we usually find.”

Noticing the look of admiration the Countess trained on Ramses, Nefret encouraged Moonlight to move past her. This crowded the Countess a bit, and Nefret murmured an apology as she rode up besides Ramses.

The remains of an impressive gate lay broken and half-buried in the sand. She rode closer and tried to imagine what the house must have looked like in its prime. Its mud brick exterior would have been plastered and whitewashed, the windows glittering with light as visitors entered the courtyard. The glass was all broken now, ghostly remnants of curtains seemed to flutter as drawn back by spectral hands. Sand crept in everywhere.

It was blazing hot, yet she shivered. She was glad when the Countess broke the spell and asked Ramses to help her dismount. Later, Nefret would wonder if she had had a premonition.

Once the Countess was on the ground she kept a firm grasp of Ramses’ arm, no doubt still on the verge of a dramatic swoon. Ramses guided her to the stream and settled her in the shade of a massive fig tree. Returning to Nefret, he gallantly offered a hand to help her down. She rolled her eyes and dismounted quite neatly on her own. However she did not disdain his arm as they left the horses to graze and quench their thirst, and joined the Countess. “Thank you, my boy.”

“What an extraordinary thing to discover out here,” the Countess murmured as she drew off her gloves. “Who could it have belonged to?” She dabbled long, white fingers in the water, and dried them on a fine linen handkerchief. 

“I believe,” Ramses stretched the word out to additional syllables, “that must be what remains of the Baskerville Expedition House. It was one of Mother and Father’s earliest adventures,” he explained with a glance at Nefret. He was utterly oblivious to the way the Countess wet her handkerchief and dabbed it against her cheeks and throat. If the Countess was displeased by this lack of attention, Nefret found she entirely approved. She still felt a pang at having been so quick to judge him in the matter of Madame von Eine and had resolved to practice some caution in that area.

“Were you with them?” she asked. This was certainly the first she’d heard of the adventure. “You did say Baskerville?”

He acknowledged her train of thought with a minute smile and nod of the head. “I wondered if Mother had, er, borrowed the name, but apparently no actual liberties were taken. But no, I did not accompany them on that occasion. It was another two years before they determined that I was ready to come out with them.” If the glint in his eye was any indicator, Nefret thought he might still incline to raise objections on that score. “I did meet Lady Baskerville, however, when she called at Amara House to appeal to Mother and Father.”

Always eager to learn more of her adopted family, Nefret listened with avid attention as Ramses spun out the tale as he had pieced it together.

“She dared to call the Professor Radcliffe? How did Aunt Amelia take to that? How did the Professor?”

“I believe Mother was not kindly disposed toward the lady. You know Father, though, his chivalrous nature makes it difficult to ever confront a woman.”

“Yes, poor thing. Aunt Amelia must have been fuming.” 

“I expect she took some satisfaction in proving the lady was a murderer before she could marry Cyrus Vandergelt.”

“Lucky Cyrus.” 

“Mother’s always thought so.”

“What extraordinary lives you all lead,” said the Countess.

Nefret grinned as she cupped her hands in the stream and splashed the water in her face. It did feel delicious and refreshing as it cooled her skin. Head thrown back, she let the droplets slide down her neck and chest, reveling in the sensation. 

“Every year another murder,” she quoted Abdullah, and turned to share a fond look with Ramses. She was astonished to find that he stared back at her with a stricken look. Sober now, she added, “But not this year.” Had her words reminded him of events in Palestine and the young spy he’d been unable to save?

“Well, it’s early days yet,” the Countess murmured. Then when Nefret and Ramses turned dumbfounded looks on her, she hastened to explain, “Forgive me, I only meant to make a little joke.”

So small as to be invisible, Nefret thought to herself, but held her tongue. She was more concerned with Ramses and turned a searching gaze on him. “If I reminded you of--”

“No, no.” He had found his voice once more and waved away her concern. Looking a bit flushed, however, he crouched by the stream, fingers trailing through the water. For a moment Nefret thought he might plunge his entire head into the water. In the end, he was content with mirroring her actions. He did look rather splendid, caught in the sun, shafts of light turning the water droplets to gold. Small wonder he had so many ardent admirers, she thought--and then caught sight of the Countess ogling him rather shamelessly. Nefret raised an eyebrow and then laughed as Ramses shook himself like a big dog, scattering water. She suspected she was entirely too delighted to see several drops strike the Countess. That lady’s expression of displeasure was worth it, however.

Nefret had wondered why Aunt Amelia had taken a dim view of the Countess right from the start. Her tale wasn’t so far fetched, after all. She could have been set upon by bandits, as she claimed. And what was more natural than that she should fetch up on their doorstep in such a state? Theirs was the preferred destination of all those who found themselves in desperate straits in this part of Egypt. The woman deserved some benefit of the doubt. 

Nefret couldn’t say why she now shared those misgivings. Call it intuition, but there was something about the Countess that set one’s teeth on edge. Whatever it was, it was sufficient for Nefret to suggest they call an end to the excursion and return home. “It will be dusk soon.”

“Oh, but surely we might indulge ourselves just a trifle more,” the Countess protested. She extended a hand to Ramses that he might help her up. “Can we not explore this beguiling relic, just for a moment?” Once again her appeal was made exclusively to Ramses.

Nefret watched him waver, caught between the good sense of turning back, and the sometimes misplaced sense of chivalry he shared with his father. The latter won out, as Nefret had known it would, and he cast a look of petition her way. “We can spare a few minutes,” he said.

“A very few,” Nefret replied. As it was, the Professor would take them to task over dinner and complain they were neglecting their duties to play dragoman for the Countess. That this had been agreed on to keep the Countess from pestering him would be deemed beside the point. Although doubtless Aunt Amelia would have a word with him about it and restore his good temper. Aunt Amelia was rather uncanny that way.

And truth be told, Nefret could not deny she felt a pang or two of curiosity about the grand house that lay in ruins before them. She believed that was Ramses’ chief interest as well, and the Countess merely provided a handy excuse to indulge his desire to go exploring.

What motivated the Countess, Nefret could not say.

~*~

Someone else had been here, and not that long ago, Ramses observed as they made their way into the courtyard of Baskerville House. Footprints wouldn’t last long with the sand blowing in to conceal everything. Though he noted the tracks, he preferred to keep his own counsel about them for the moment. He did study the Countess with some interest, marking the shape and size of her boots, and the length of her stride.

“How is it we’ve never been here?” Nefret asked as they made their way with caution along what had been the loggia. Parts of it had crashed down, taking supporting pillars with it. The whole area was littered with treacherous debris. Nefret stumbled over a chunk of masonry. Ramses caught her before she could fall. Tempted to hold her close for a moment, he set her back on her feet in a manner that could only be seen as brusque. The look that flashed in her blue eyes confirmed this.

Since he could neither address or correct that, Ramses looked away. He pretended to be absorbed in the cracks that showed in a still-upright column, the withered remains of vines still wound about the stone. Fingers tracing the cracks, he said, “I suppose Mother and Father may have unpleasant associations with the place. I do know this is where the cat Bastet deigned to take up with them,” he added, wistful at the memory of his beloved cat.

Nefret touched his shoulder, only meaning to offer some comfort--she had loved the cat Bastet too. Her touch might have been a brand, it seared right through him. It was a relief when she drew her hand back. Another second and she would have inquired why he was shaking so violently. He drew in a calming breath, let it out, and looked about with some concern. “Where has the Countess gone?”

Startled out of her own thoughts, Nefret glanced around. “She was just ahead of us-- Look, there!”

Ramses looked and saw the Countess just as she disappeared into the house. Muttering under his breath about damned fools who couldn’t do as they were told, Ramses made his way to the door. “What’s so amusing?” he asked Nefret.

“I was just thinking that you’re very like the Professor at times.”

Uncertain if that was a compliment, Ramses gave her a hand over debris that littered the doorway. “Mind the broken glass.”

“I see it. I say we collect the Countess and--” Nefret stopped as Ramses held up a hand and shushed her.

Voice dropped to a whisper, he said, “I hear footsteps.” If she wondered at his inclination to stealth, she was ready to follow his lead, and replied with a nod of understanding. “This way.”

They crept along, Nefret’s step as careful as his. Before long, they fetched up at a door whose door gaped open to reveal stone steps that curved downward. Light flickered up, as though from a wall sconce.

Nefret put her lips to his ear and whispered, “Would you think me alarmist if I confessed to a sense of unease about this?” Then, a note of concern in her voice, “Ramses? Are you breathing?”

Yes, yes it was important to breathe. Reminded of that, he nodded, swallowed, and trusted any tremor in his voice would be taken for alarm over their circumstances. “Of course I’m breathing. And no, I would not say you jumped to unwarranted conclusions.” _Had_ those been the tracks of the Countess? If she had been out here before, though... No, he couldn’t quite pin it down yet. He wished he was on his own, though, or with David. He would never forgive himself if he endangered Nefret. “Perhaps we should--”

A shriek ripped through the eerie quiet, the Countess’s breathless voice calling to them. “Ramses! Oh, please, I need help! Ramses!”

“She’s down there,” Nefret said, already starting down the steps.

Ramses caught her by the shoulders, held her back. “Let me go first.”

She threw him a look of stubborn impatience but allowed him to move past her. He could feel her right on his heels.

The steps wound downward in a spiral fashion, solid enough underfoot. The sense of descending into the earth was uncanny, though, heightened by that flicker of light and the frightened gasps of the woman they sought. Had she fallen? he wondered. Or chanced upon a horned viper or cobra that had made its home down here?

“Countess! Are you injured?” he called out as they descended.

“I’m very frightened, Ramses,” she called back. “Please hurry.”

They reached the bottom and found themselves in a short corridor. The light source was confirmed as a sconce affixed to the wall. Its candle cast enough illumination to show them the Countess where she crouched near a wooden door, her face buried in her hands. The pose was dramatic enough but nothing else was disclosed as Ramses swept his gaze around the corridor.

“What is it?” he asked, crossing to her in two swift strides.

Her only answer was a violent shake of her head, one arm flung out to indicate the door. Voice hoarse and choked with fear, she told them, “In there. I--it’s in there.”

Ramses exchanged a baffled, wary look with Nefret, and approached the door with exceptional care. The door opened outward and he motioned to Nefret to stand back as he swung it wide. His imagination supplied an abundance of horrors, but none of them were immediately apparent as the room beyond was revealed. Another candle guttered in a sconce, high up on a wall. He took a step into the room, then another, Nefret right behind him, stopping in the middle.

“There’s nothing here. Countess, I don’t under--” Even as he spoke, even as he turned to look at her, however, he did begin to have an inkling. Thus he was not entirely taken aback to find a pistol pointed straight at him.

“Why should you understand? It’s clear your parents never gave a second thought to what happened here.” Her voice had lost some of its upper crust quality but her bearing was lit through with pride as she looked at them. “Well,” a note of contempt crept into her manner now, “your father doesn’t notice anything that isn’t three thousand years old. But your mother, I suppose she considers what she did here to be one of her little triumphs?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” Ramses said. The knowledge he had stumbled like an amateur into a trap would have been humiliating under other circumstances. All he was aware of right then was the excruciating knowledge that he had led Nefret into terrible danger, and that he had no idea how to get her to safety.

“She doesn’t gloat, trot the tale out at holidays, of how she got in my sister’s way and ruined everything?”

Her sister? “Lady Baskerville, is that who you mean?”

“Patience, her name was Patience. Did your mother even know that she died in prison? Did your mother ever spare Patience another thought?”

“I--”

“Yes.” Mocking now, she mimicked him, “I’m sure you wouldn’t know.” Dead serious then, she motioned with the pistol, indicating they should move further back, up against the wall. “I know everything. Patience wrote me from the hellhole they put her in. She told me everything your mother did to her. She even told me about you, their perfectly beastly child. I made it my mission to learn everything else. Your mother would plunge herself into danger without a second thought. The knowledge that her actions brought about the death of her beloved children will be quite a different story, though. It will destroy both your parents.”

“I think you underestimate them both,” Nefret said with regal composure. Ramses thought he may have never loved her more than at this moment, as she faced this danger full on, chin up and eyes blazing with a hauteur the Countess could only aspire to. “If you truly knew all, you would be aware that no one crosses the Father of Curses and the Sitt Hakim and emerges the victor.”

“Well, we shall just have to see, my dear. Oh,” malignant pleasure twisted the Countess’s mouth, “but you won’t be there to see it, will you? Dear me.”

“Just for the sake of clarity,” Ramses said, calculating possibilities, “what do you intend to do with us?” If he jumped her, she might shoot him, but Nefret could get away. 

“Do? Why, nothing.” She was in the doorway now, and Ramses began to have a glimmer of what she had in mind. “I shall go to your parents and spin them another tale of woe that sends them far, far away from here on a hopeless quest. And when I can be quite certain you’re both dead, and that shouldn’t take long, I shall send a message directing them here. After that,” her smile now was all the more diabolic for its girlish sweetness, “well, there may be more surprises in store.” She put the index finger of her left hand to her lips. “Can’t tell all my secrets, my dears.”

“Someone’s not half barmy, as Gargery would say,” Nefret said.

Ramses grasped her hand and squeezed it. There was so much he wanted to tell her. There was so much he would never share with her now. 

Malice sharpened the Countess’s eyes as she looked at Nefret and said, “Oh, this will be fun.”

Now, it had to be now, Ramses knew, but even as he started toward her, he froze in place as the Countess took dead aim on Nefret.

“Look at this way,” her words were addressed to Ramses, “at least she’ll go quickly.”

“No!” But even as the protest rose and burst from his throat, the Countess squeezed the trigger. Flame erupted from the barrel, noise and the smell of gunpowder filled the small space--and Nefret gave a cry and began to crumple to the ground

Ramses caught her, held her close without hesitation, unable to do anything but watch as the Countess backed out of the room and began to close the door. “Go after her!” Nefret urged, trying to push him away. “Ramses--”

“I can’t. I...can’t...” _Leave you._

He read that knowledge in the Countess’s eyes, just before the door slammed shut. He heard the click of a lock, and then nothing, nothing but Nefret’s rapid breaths and the cries of pain she tried to stifle.

“Shh, shh,” he breathed out as he cradled her with the utmost care.

“Another shirt ruined.” Nefret spoke the words with an attempt at wry humor. 

Ramses held her closer. “Mother will be quite cross with you.”

“Yes.” Nefret bit her lip, burrowed into him, one hand gripping the nape of his neck. “And she’ll give me instructions on the avoidance of getting shot whilst facing down a madwoman.” Her voice caught on the last syllable and she couldn’t quite suppress a cry of pain. “Ramses...”

“Shh,” he whispered again, against her hair, stroking it. “Mother and Father have worked everything out already, I’m sure of it. They’re charging to our rescue even now.” It could even be true, he thought, desperate to believe it for Nefret’s sake.

“Yes, of course.” Nefret sniffed and gave a little nod. “I’m sure you’re right. Only...”

“What? What is it?” He sat back a bit, terrified at the blood that spread out in a crimson splash across her coat and soaked the shirt beneath.

“It does hurt a bit.”

“Yes. Yes, of course it does. We must take to carrying flasks of medicinal brandy about with us, as Mother does.”

“I don’t suppose...?” Nefret asked on a hopeful note. 

He shook his head. “Afraid not.”

“Pity. It would be an excellent disinfectant, too. You have your canteen?”

He nodded, took it off his belt.

“That will have to do.” Medical instincts in place now, she craned her head in an effort to look at the wound. “It’s my shoulder,” she said. “We need to stop the bleeding.”

Glad of her practicality under the circumstances, envying it, he asked, “What can I do?”

She started to shrug out of her coat, bit her lip, and uttered a word Mother would have found most objectionable. “And blast and damnation,” she finished. “You’ll have to help me out of this, and the blouse.” she said. “We can use it for bandages and a sling.”

“Er.”

She shot him a sharp look. “Well? Get to it. Or must I do it myself?”

Sufficiently pulled together, Ramses knelt beside her, muttering under his breath, “Your name could never be Patience.” 

If she heard, her only reply was a snort.

He slid her right arm out of the coat easily enough, gritted his teeth and tried to extricate her left as gently as possible. Her breathing grew rapid again and her skin was damp with perspiration, but she nodded encouragement at him to continue. She sank back against the cool stone wall with a look of relief when the coat was disposed of, while Ramses could only stare with a kind of dull horror at the blood that soaked her shirt.

“It looks bad.”

“Imagine it from my side.” There was an acerbic note in her voice. Then she opened her eyes and looked at him. “No, better if you don’t,” she amended. Her implication stung, yet Ramses could not claim it was undeserved. He _felt_ barely useful. “Come on, my boy, we’re not done yet. You’ll have to help me out of my blouse.”

Ramses would have liked to believe that in another time and place those words would not have struck him dumb. He rather suspected that would be an unsupportable boast. When he did find his voice, before Nefret looked too sharply at him, it was to utter as idiotically as possible, “What?”

Exasperation began to fire her eyes as Nefret repeated her command. “You work the button through the hole and so on until it’s done,” she prompted when he still failed to respond.

This time he favored her with a tetchy look. “I am well aware of how one unbuttons a shirt.”

“Good to know.”

He glowered a bit more before bringing his full attention to the matter at hand. This was hardly the first time he had engaged in so intimate an act--but not with her. Every pursuit he had ever enjoyed with other women was as nothing, would fade to a passing diversion, if ever once he touched Nefret as a lover. Ramses knew this with a certainty that surpassed any other knowledge. If its intensity alarmed him, it also spurred him on to never disappoint her. If there was even the slimmest of chances they would survive this, he would not fail her now.

“Tell me if I hurt you,” he said with a fresh rush of determination and reached for the first button.

“No worries about that.”

His lips twitched with a smile as he glanced at her. “You’re magnificent.” Her red gold hair had come loose and tumbled about her; she was smudged with dirt, and the awful, awful blood, but to Ramses’ eyes she could never be less than a goddess. 

“I...” She looked a bit lost for a moment, as if she had stumbled upon something unknown and unexpected. “I don’t feel magnificent. I feel like a damn fool.”

“Let me be the judge of that,” he said. He worked one more button out, then another, until the bloodied shirt hung loose about her. “I knew the Countess had been here previously. I should have been on my guard,” he added, and told her about the tracks he’d spotted.

Nefret nodded, tried not to wince as he eased the cloth off her shoulders and down her arms. “Aunt Amelia was suspicious of her from the start.”

“Mother is suspicious of most people right from the start.” 

“Events usually prove her correct.”

“There is that.” He folded up the cloth and set it aside for the moment. “May I?” he asked, a hand stretched out to her shoulder.

“Of course.” She turned her head to watch as he reached for the strap of her camisole and drew it down her shoulder. “See? Just a scratch,” she said with another wry quirk of her lips.

“Is this why you and Mother become so provoked when Father or I dismiss our injuries as inconsequential?”

“It’s part of it.”

“The bullet’s still in there?” he asked and sought for some sense of objectivity as he examined the wound. Viewed that way, he could say that he had seen far worse injuries. Objectivity was difficult to come by just at the moment, however.

“Yes.”

It would have to come out--but not here. Ramses wasn’t sure that he believed in any greater power, but he believed in his parents. If they discovered the Countess’s deception, if they persuaded her to talk, if she told them the truth, if they got here in time, if if if.... Down that path lay an abyss of despair. He pulled himself back from it and began tearing strips from the shirt. 

He put the canteen to her lips and urged her to take a drink. “You too,” she told him and he obeyed. Then, as she rested back against the wall, he got to work dampening the cloth to wash the blood away.

One scrap discarded, he reached for a fresh one to clean the wound itself but hesitated, disconcerted by the gurgle of laughter that bubbled up from her. “Nefret?” He hadn’t thought she could be delirious with fever so soon.

She looked at him, laughter lingering in her eyes. “I was just thinking of how your many conquests would trip over themselves to change places with me right now.”

His perplexity only increased. “That...is utterly nonsensical.”

“True, but it is a popular element of many a romance tale. The damsel in distress rescued by a dashing and mysterious hero, and spirited away to his secret lair.”

What on earth had she been reading of late? “This is hardly _my_ lair, nor am I anyone’s dashing hero--”

“I could name several ladies who would disagree with that.”

“--anymore than you are a damsel in distress,” he concluded. He wasn’t about to make inquiries about the names on that list. And he was still just barely dabbing the skin around the wound.

“Ah, well there you have me. Why should the damsel always be in distress? Why can’t she rescue the dashing hero?”

“I’ve no idea. Sounds much more sensible.” Dab dab dab.

Nefret heaved a mighty sigh. “Wash the bloody wound out, will you? It won’t hurt more than it already does.”

Much more sensible indeed.

By the time it was done, Ramses’ own shirt had been sacrificed to the cause. “Two shirts ruined. What will Aunt Amelia say?” Ramses believed his mother would approve their resourcefulness. He only hoped they were resourceful enough.

“How’s that?” Finished with tying a knot to secure a makeshift sling, Ramses caught hold of Nefret and settled her down with as delicate a touch as if handling a priceless treasure. She was that, he thought as he adjusted her bundled up coat under her head, and then laid his own coat over her.

“All right.” She shifted a bit, restless and searching in vain for a more comfortable spot. “I shall never mock a feather bed again.”

“Have you mocked a feather bed before?” Ramses gathered up the bloodied rags and moved them to a corner of their cell. For form’s sake, he tried the door, putting his shoulder into it. It didn’t budge. Would his father have been daunted, given in? As quickly as the thought passed through his mind, Ramses dismissed it. There was nothing productive to be found down that road.

“Perhaps if you said ‘Open Sesame?’” 

Ramses appreciated how insistent Nefret was up to keep her chin up. Bravado in dire straits was the unofficial family motto after all. It was impossible not to hear the weary strain in her voice, though, or miss how pale she looked even in the feeble light. She had lost a great deal of blood.

“I’d give a lot for a magic lamp and a genie to grant wishes.” His examination of the room completed, not a secret passage to be had, Ramses returned to Nefret’s side and sat down beside her. “I’d give more if I could wish you out of here.”

“Tired of me already? Would you swap me for Christabel Pankhurst?”

“Hardly.” He permitted himself the liberty of brushing a lock of hair back from her face. He let the touch linger, ascertaining that there was as yet no sign of fever. “I only want you out of danger, Nefret. I should be here on my own.”

“Never.” Despite her weakened state, Nefret’s protest rang strong and clear. “Whatever happens, we shall meet it together. I would choose no other fate.”

He wanted to deny the warmth that flooded him at her declaration but knew himself too craven to do so. Besides, it was something his parents had long shared between them, the strength to face anything so long as they were together. No doubt the degree of intimacy his parents enjoyed increased their bond. The deep friendship he and Nefret had was nothing inconsequential, though. He might wish there could be more between them, but he was in no way dissatisfied with the connection they had forged.

“Nor would I,” he said and grasped her hand. “We’re not beaten yet.”

“Certainly not.” She squeezed his hand. “What time is it?”

He looked at his watch, squinting to make out the numbers in the sputtering light. “Just past seven.” He scarcely believed it, it felt as though whole centuries must have passed.

“They’ll come for us at dawn.” Nefret spoke this with such assurance Ramses felt it impossible to express any doubt.

“A premonition?”

“Why not? Aunt Amelia swears by them. I don’t know why you and the Professor are so skeptical.”

“We are accustomed to dealing with hard facts that can be proven.”

She sniffed with disdain. “More things in heaven and earth, Horatio.” She sighed then and tried to stifle a groan of pain. “You’ll see, they’ll come at dawn.”

“Yes.” He stroked her hair again. “They’ll come for us at dawn.” _Please hold on, my love. Please hold on that long._

“I miss the cat Bastet at times like these. She would have trailed after us and returned home to fetch Mother and Father already.”

“Tell me how you met her,” Nefret said. “Tell me about all your adventures.” Then, her voice quieter, vulnerable, she confessed, “I don’t want to go to sleep, Ramses.”

He nodded, tried to clear the obstruction that tightened his throat, and cast his mind back to his first glimpse of the cat Bastet. “Uncle Walter and Aunt Evelyn had brought me with them to London to meet Mother and Father upon their returns. For obscure reasons that seemed to revolve around the idea that I would incite some catastrophic event if taken to meet them at the docks, I was left behind at Chalfont House to await their arrival. Thus, I was out in the garden regarding a bone I had discovered--upon further examination it was revealed to be merely a soup bone buried by some long-forgotten dog--when Mother and Father appeared. Father was carrying a rather large crate...”

Nefret knew the story, of course. There was scarcely any family narrative with which she was not familiar by now. There was a comfort in the old stories, though. Certainly it was no hardship to recall his first sight of the cat Bastet, and she of him. Upon reflection, he supposed that was his first experience of love at first sight.

He talked on, even when he suspected Nefret must have dozed off for a moment. His throat grew dry and his voice was quite hoarse by the time the candle sputtered its last and plunged them into darkness. Still he talked on so that she would not wake to darkness and silence.

Nefret halted his words at last when, voice slurred with sleep, she said, “Tell me a secret, Ramses.”

He had been relating an anecdote about the time he, Selim, and Daoud had thought to add a flying carpet to Father’s fantasia and had been discovered by his Mother as they experimented with how best to achieve the effect, when Nefret’s words struck him mute. As he recalled, his mother’s to the flying carpet had been entirely out of proportion to the actual danger involved. Ramses had no doubt he would have survived unscathed. He would rather be back there right now, suspended upside down in midair, than confronted with Nefret asking to be taken into his confidence.

“A secret?” he parroted when he found his voice once more.

“Yes.” She sounded barely awake. “Something no one else knows,” she murmured around a yawn.

Was she only very tired? he wondered. He touched her wrist and tried to judge if her pulse was weak. Sheer tenacity kept his own eyes open--and he suspected he would lose that battle before much longer.

There was only one secret he’d kept from her, and that was the one he could not share. “All out of secrets,” he told her.

She murmured something indistinct, although he thought it might have been, “Liar.”  
Did it matter now? That litany of ifs pushed their way to the front of his thoughts once more, bringing the certainty that any rescue, if it came, would not be in time. If he didn’t tell her now, there would never be another chance. “Are you asleep?”

A murmur.

He sighed, touched her hair. Now...or never... “I love you, Nefret. I have from the moment I first instant I glimpsed you at the Holy Mountain.”

“You were ten.”

If she had sat up and driven a dagger through his chest, Ramses could not have been more astonished. Had he imagined the words? Exhaustion might be playing tricks with his mind. She hadn’t stirred, and her eyes were closed. “Nefret...?”

“Still here.” But barely; the words were so soft he wouldn’t have heard them from just an inch or two away.

He should be quiet now, or steer this into safer waters. Just in case. As if the proverbial floodgates had been cracked open, however, the words continued to tumble out. “I don’t say I understood it was love. I only knew the sight of you struck me dumb as nothing had ever done. It only got worse from there.”

Another indistinct murmur; impossible to decipher this one at all.

She was asleep. If she awoke--he longed for the faith to believe it would be _when_ \--she likely would remember none of this.

He had imagined several scenarios should he ever confess all to her. That she would welcome his revelation and come into his arms had always struck him as the least likely outcome. Far more probable that she would, with the utmost civility and kindness, tell him she could not return his feelings. At no time had he supposed he would confess everything as she slumbered, all unaware.

Better this way, he mused, as his eyelids drooped, exhaustion ready to claim him. He had been a long time in this limbo, after all, experiencing neither elation or despair. It was familiar to him. 

He didn’t even know the moment when sleep claimed him at last. Only that one second he was imagining how David would mock him for an idiot if he ever learned of this, and then nothing at all until some minuscule sound impinged on his consciousness. The scuttle of a beetle? No, more like claws scrabbling at something.

Awareness crept back as the sound grew louder, as the cacophony expanded to include voices, two of them shouting, “Ramses! Nefret! Are you there?”

Half-convinced he was still asleep and dreaming, Ramses pushed himself up straighter, the wall hard and cold against his naked back, his fingers cramped from grasping Nefret’s hand. “Here,” he called out, or tried to. His throat was so dry, his voice still hoarse. He swallowed, coughed, tried again. “Here! We’re here!”

“Ramses!” That was his father, Emerson’s voice like thunder. “Ramses! Call out again, my boy!”

He did, until he thought his voice would fail completely. No matter, though, it had been enough. The door shuddered under one impact, then another, then seemingly two together, and began to crack. One more time and it surrendered, splintering and parting to reveal his father and Daoud, Amelia right behind them. She somehow managed to be the first to stumble into the chamber as torches swept the interior and centered on he and Nefret.

If his mother was confounded to discover them in such a state, it showed for only an instant. Then she was all brisk business, ordering everyone to hold their torches steady while she knelt to examine them both. Finding Ramses suffered only from profound befuddlement, she turned her attention to Nefret as anxious faces loomed above them--good lord, was that Cyrus Vandergelt? David, too, and one face Ramses could not place at all until a sardonic look was directed his way. Sethos...

As Ramses began to sort things out, Emerson asked, his voice heavy with concern, “Peabody? Is she...?”

Ramses’ mother looked up then, her face downright radiant. “She lives.” A heartfelt sigh then, no doubt to release the worry that had absorbed her. “She lives,” Amelia repeated. “We must get her home at once, though. Daoud, come here, will you?”

The big man stepped forward and knelt as commanded, cradling Nefret in his arms as tenderly as a newborn babe. “I have her, Sitt Hakim.”

Emerson might have taken her from him, however, if Amelia did not have plans. “Emerson, Ramses needs your assistance.” Her eyes narrowed for a moment, taking in his shirtless state as if for the first time. “Ah well, needs must. You fixed the sling?”

“He was magnificent, Aunt Amelia.”

Ramses knew he was not the only one to stop and stare in astonishment as Nefret raised her head just a fraction to look at them all. To what degree she was truly awake might be debated, but there was recognition and satisfaction in her face. 

“Ye of little faith,” she murmured, looking at him. “Didn’t I say they would come for us?”

Was that her last clear memory? Ramses wondered. He might yet be in the clear, he thought as he answered her. “You said they would come at dawn. It is now,” he looked at his watch, “just past midnight.”

“Ignore him, my dear,” Amelia said. “I trust no one is of a mind to linger here any longer? Emerson, give Ramses your coat.”

And with that, Emerson supporting Ramses, she herded them out of the cell and back up the stairs. Horses were waiting, along with a carriage courtesy of Cyrus. Nefret was settled there, Amelia climbing in after her. Ramses declined the invitation to join them, saying he felt refreshed by the night air. Nor was he disingenuous on that matter. After the last few hours, it was a rare pleasure indeed to breathe deeply and bask in the freedom of the desert that sprawled in its splendid infinity beneath a sky even more vast.

Aware of David’s searching looks, he paused a moment to murmur, “We will talk later,” before he mounted Risha.

As the party moved out at last, Emerson and Cyrus out in front of the carriage while Daoud sat beside the driver, Ramses watched as Sethos fell in beside him. “Do I want to know how you come to be involved in this?” he asked. Curiosity was nudging him rather ferociously. “Who are you at the moment, by the way?”

“Oh,” Sethos waved an airy hand, “just a Christian pilgrim embarked on a holy quest.”

Ramses regretted he had not been present when Sethos trotted that one out for Emerson’s inspection. He imagined the invectives had been rare and exceptional. He retrained himself to a modest roll of his eyes. “And you just happened to be passing by?”

“Lucky that I was, actually. I spotted the Countess at once--she had been part of Bertha’s gang at one point, although I believe she branched out on her with some success. Mind you, your mother had already worked out most of it.” 

As he’d spoken, a smirk of the utmost aggravation had crossed Sethos’ face, spurring Ramses to demand what there was to be amused by in all of this. And where was the Countess anyway?

“No worries there,” Sethos assured him. “She is under lock and key and guarded by the estimable Selim. I suspect she may be glad of it, too.” There was the smirk again. This time Sethos hastened to explain, “Let us just say that were I in a similar situation, with your mother aflame with the knowledge that you were in danger and I had put you there, and my choice was to jump into a pit of vipers or be left alone with your mother and her parasol, _I_ would opt for the vipers.”

Oh good lord. “She didn’t...?” He had memories of an incident on his first visit out here, of just how terrifying his mother and her parasol could be under those circumstances. 

“No, she didn’t, as it happens. But the Countess believed she would.”

“I did think she appeared a bit more...” Ramses hesitated, not sure how to express his mother’s appearance of heightened vim and vigor. He was particularly loathe to draw Sethos’ attention to it at all.

Sethos seemed to understand exactly what he meant, however. “Flushed with triumph and exhilaration? Yes, she wears it well.” He cast a look of admiration at the carriage, gave a nod to Ramses, and edged away to ride ride up beside the carriage.

David fell in beside Ramses then, silent but with volumes of questions in his eyes.

“Later,” Ramses repeated. 

Gaze fixed on the carriage, Ramses knew too much remained unsettled for him to proceed in any direction. When he knew Nefret was out of danger, when he knew what, if anything, she remembered, then he would know how to act.

For now... For now, there was nothing to be done but wait.

~*~

“Nearly healed,” Nefret pronounced as Amelia finished changing the bandage.

“And with hardly a scar to show for it.” Amelia smiled, patted the uninjured shoulder, and watched with eagle-eyed scrutiny as Nefret finished dressing. “Well,” she allowed when the last button was fastened, “perhaps you can do without the sling now.”

“There’s no reason I can’t return to work at the site.” More than a week of being cooped up here was about all she could endure.

“Another day or two, and then we’ll see.”

Were her opponent anyone else, Nefret would have dug in her heels and gotten her way. She knew precisely how that would go over with her aunt, however. She could bide another day or two. She would be most adamant after that.

Besides, it was no small triumph that she would join the rest of the family for breakfast this morning.

They were all there on the veranda, just sitting down as Fatima brought out the food. As they caught sight of her, Emerson and David rose to their feet. Ramses took another moment or two before he stood. When he did, he watched her with a guarded look. She had the impression he might bolt at any moment. That he remained owed more to David’s restraining look than to any sense of etiquette, Nefret surmised. 

It was the Professor who came to greet her, fussing over her and demanding, “Peabody, should she be out of bed?”

Amelia calmed Emerson’s concerns, and soon Nefret found herself seated at the table. She had already felt entirely recovered. Now, as she sat surrounded by all she loved, she felt sufficiently invigorated to face down a hundred gun-wielding Countesses and emerge triumphant.

She couldn’t mind that they wanted to fuss and spoil her a bit. Things had been touch-and-go in the first hours. That she might die had been a distinct possibility. Most of those hours were a blur of pain, anxious faces, and distressed murmurs. She had one clear recollection of a whispered conversation between Amelia and Daoud. Something about how Daoud knew Nur Misur would be well, and Amelia saying she was certain as well, and that Abdullah concurred. How could any Grim Reaper hope to overcome that formidable trio?

There were other memories of someone sitting beside her, holding her hand. She had tried to open her eyes, to put a name to the presence that brought such warmth and comfort. All she had glimpsed was a shadowy figure that disappeared out the door.

Nefret believed she could put a name to the presence now. She was certain of it, in fact.

As though he felt her gaze trained upon him, Ramses looked up from a piece of toast, frowned and glanced away as quickly.

She smiled and buttered her own toast with satisfaction.

When they had all gone off to their work, and Horus was her only companion at last, Nefret found an envelope, stationary, and a pen, and sat to write:

_Dear Lia,_

_I’ve no doubt David has told you of our latest adventures. He doesn’t know all, however. No one does, as yet. I scarcely trust my own memories, to be perfectly frank, and could almost believe it had been a dream. He was there again last night, though--he’s been there every night. Quiet, almost hidden, watching over me all the while._

_He’s been quiet for so long. He might have stayed quiet forever, I might never have guessed. How strange to think I owe a debt of gratitude to a madwoman with a gun!_

_But I’m getting ahead of myself. I shall start at the beginning. If I only knew the beginning. Was it that day, when the Countess insisted we go out riding? Or was it the day I realized Ramses might meet someone, might marry and leave to have a home of his own, and how desolate that left me?_

_I didn’t have another name for it, not then. I have one now._

_He loves me, Lia. Ramses loves me. And I’m terrified that he will run off to the wilds of Borneo before I have the chance to say it back to him._

_I do have a plan, however..._

Done, Nefret read the letter through, nodded, and slid it into the envelope. She was pledged to it now, as surely as if she had sworn a solemn oath. There was no going back. 

Far from wanting to turn back, she found she rather enjoyed the challenge that lay before her. 

This time the damsel would rescue the dashing hero--even if she had to track him to the ends of the earth. But she rather thought Luxor would be far enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Dear Yuletide Recipient: This was my first time writing for this fandom--I only finished reading the novels a couple of weeks ago--and although it was a daunting prospect to tackle these characters, it was also a welcome one. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> Obviously some liberties were taken with events in "Curse of the Pharaohs," chiefly with regard to the house. Also, try as I might I could not find Lady Baskerville's given name anywhere in the novel--thus I christened her myself, primarily so Ramses could get a good line out of it.
> 
> The matter of Peabody and Her Terrible Parasol, referenced towards the end, is taken from "The Mummy Case," pps. 292-293 of my copy.
> 
> This was beta'd by white_sin. All remaining mistakes are my own.


End file.
